- Google changing strategy and adopting the semantic search model. Dell says it will release an iPhone killer. Oh really? iPhone sued over being used as a book reader.
- Suse Linux 11 hopes to take over data centers.
- IBM and Wyse getting together to re-introduce thin client computing.
- Win7 being changed as expected.
- Red Hat to be bought by Oracle?
- More 3D theaters coming soon.
- Steve Pearlman introduces OnLive. I call it Cloud Gaming.
Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.
and dells going bust!
Ok that’s it, the sound effects finally killed any interest in listening to Dvorak. Please let me know when you have stopped using these annoying clips from Family Guy or anything else not with your own voice. Thank you.
OnLive news is all over the web today.
Every current online game works like this:
1. your computer or console “renders” your environment from game data stored on your computer.
2. you take action
3. action is sent to gaming server
4. gaming server decides outcome which is sent back to your computer
5. go to step 1.
Onlive works like this:
1. Your computer gets a streaming video feed from an online server.
2. you take action
3. action is sent to gaming server
4. gaming server decides outcome, renders the outcome from game data stored on the server, and converts it to streaming video
5. go to step 1.
That seems like an awful lot of work for the game server to handle, but if they can get it to work, there is no real need for powerful gaming computers to use the service. Theoretically, I could play Crysis in high definition detail on my ipod touch. There would be no need to get the latest hardware, or constantly updating your console.
If they could pull it off successfully, it would change gaming forever.
3D theaters.
I went to see Coraline in 3D with my daughter. It’s absolutely unbelievable! If you haven’t seen it, do.
#3
I don’t think it will ever work simply because having the server “serve” thousands and in some cases millions of user actions requires tons of processing power and bandwidth. Even now, online servers are struggling and they have to create additional servers just to separate the amount of users being service. Good example of this is World of Warcraft, of course.
But I agree with you #2, those sounds effects are annoying after a while
It feels like cheap old style radio broadcasting or that annoying Cramer guy from Money Market pushing those red dials *grrrr* What a waste of time and effort imo
Dell’s latest iteration of the phone was deemed “too bland” by the carriers. Way to kick ass, Dell!
Is Steve Ballmer writing Dell’s material now.
#3 #5
The only way this would work is if we are playing board games where latency isn’t an issue.
I really don’t want to play a pixelated “Video feed” of a game and wait 2 minutes for my “actions” to be seen on screen. From what little I have read so far, Steve Pearlman is talking out if his ass as he blows smoke up ours.
If I remember right, this onlive concept has been around for a couple of decades. I remember John Romero pitching this same concept in the early days, just to back off because of bandwidth problems. He was specifically trying to solve the problems of players being out of sync, where one player could kill another before the other player even knew he was being shot at.
He figured if all the heavy work was being done on a central server, then these problems and general gameplay would be improved.
#3,
Couple of thoughts…
This is thin-client, and considering I already stream 720p content, it should work…
Finally someone came up with a valid reason to use all 250gig that comcast alots its users each month…
It is the “final solution” as far as DRM is concerned. Publishers will have absolute and total control over game copying, and when and how we access games.
Now we now know why microsoft wants to lower the cost of the xbox to $99.
Multiplayer games will get lan like experiences (hundreds of players on a server instead of dozens) because game client to client latency will be something like zero (on some crazy fiberchannel or infiniband server farm lan) as opposed to the 100-200ms it is now.
I bet the box is free with service agreement;) They are gonna want crazy dollars each month.
@#2: It is trivial to fast forward. Annoying clips are proper part of the episode exactly as they are. Try symbolic link between Dvorak, annoyed,…
@#3: (onLive) But why? What can gaming server have that can’t already be installed on your own gaming machine? The only reason to do this is DRM. If you don’t actually have the content locally it can be controlled to the provider’s “taste”.
@#6: Can we trust carriers and believe that Dell phone was really “bland” or maybe (much more likely in my mind) Dell left certain barn doors open that carriers want closed (Voip, WiFi, tethering,…)
If you look at the onlive.com website it looks like they are counting down to something in just over two hours from now…
#5 that’s my sentiment too. The demos held for the press have operated flawlessly with no lag, causing everybody to be impressed.
But being a long time veteran of online gaming, I know that even the games that use very little bandwidth (probably Guild Wars — there is a reason why it is free to play) still gets laggy when thousands of players are online.
#5,
If you consider the billions that Sony and Microsoft spent developing their consoles, only to be soundly defeated by a nintendo game cube case mod, the 1.5 billion dollars for a 20 petaflop computer is chump change.
Considering they could also farm out surplus capacity and serve the entire web for north america and drive Microsoft, Amazon and Googles cloud efforts out of business at the same time with such a facility, they might be onto something.
The solution is neither all-client (expensive consoles) or all-server (thin client). The answer is a balance between the two that lets each end do what they do best.
The server can do the heavy lifting when it comes to computing physics of interactions between multiple players and elements. It can resolve the collision of objects, and inject a natural chaos and randomness to it.
In addition, the server can be part of a processing cluster that can distribute tasks based on priority. That way the server can pre-process work when there are cycles free.
The beauty of this scenario is that the game company can continuously improve and upgrade their physics processing, and can afford to implement a supercomputer dedicated to specialized functions. So rather than waiting 10 years for the next gen console platform to come out, it would be a continues improvement.
Also, keep in mind that a server cluster can set up regional servers in order to reduce lag time between a server and client.
The clients can focus on rendering the experience to the user based on clues sent to it by the server. There are, or will be, multiple channels between the server and client. The channels have different comm priorities, impacting where info is put in the transmit queue This allows the client to start processing adjacent areas ahead of time as bandwidth and processor cycles are available.
I feel sorry for the folks working at Dell, even more so for the folks working at Microsoft.
Can you imagine a product development meeting at either?
wow! It’s not a good time to look for another job.
#15,
Once again, we already have the details… It is a thin-client. Everything runs at the server. The server streams the video to your computer or console, your console sends the state of your controller back to the server.
Other than sending the controler state, and decoding the video stream, nothing is happening on the client.
You can go sign up for the beta, but their server seems to be down.
Appears to be the most popular thing since sliced bread.
#16,
Look for Microsoft to announce a me-too service that runs on the xbox shortly;) Or as the multi-national conglomerate that they are, they will simply buy this company.
Amazing how people want to give up control of their lives to others. No wonder DRM has taken si much foot.
#2 sounds like one of them Gore widows.
HAHAHAHA!!!!
I managed to get in the beta!